Tour Reviews

The final day of Carolina Rebellion was upon us. Some people were completely wore down from the previous two days of non-stop metal, crowd surfing and moshing and others were sad that the weekend was coming to a close. Sunday’s lineup was headlined by Avenged Sevenfold, The Offspring, Volbeat, and Papa Roach. If this wasn’t already enough metal packed into one day we were also lucky enough to get a great group of undercard bands as well like Seether, Three Days Grace, Skillet, Coheed & Cambria, and Taking Back Sunday. Most of these second tier bands could headline a show on their own any night of the week. Fozzy of course was on Sunday’s lineup as well featuring WWE’s Chris Jericho. Then you have the amazing up and coming bands like Kyng who have already put their name on the map with their true trio power rock blend, Sylar who is one of the bands leading the nu-metal charge, Goodbye June, Fire From The Gods who is another nu-metal/hardcore kind of band that is picking up fans by the 100’s, Citizen Zero, Beartooth and Dutch metallars The Charm The Fury who have recently been compared to a female fronted version of Pantera. Sunday was truly one of the best lineups of the entire weekend. We didn’t get a chance to see everyone due to completing interviews and overlapping schedules. There was a few bands we missed that we really wanted to see, but we are hoping to catch most of these bands again in the near future. Continue reading →

This Friday night I found myself in slightly unfamiliar territory, covering a live performance by The Birthday Massacre, Army of the Universe and Sumo Cyco. I had not seen live performances of any of the genres that these bands are a part of, let alone the bands. My musical preference is usually harder, heavier, darker, abrasive and loaded with blistering guitar work. I have wanted to explore reviewing works of other genres for a while now. This Friday night after the end of a frenetic work week was a good one to buck this trend. Largely due to my lack of supreme expertise with these styles of music, this review is an assessment of the bands’ overall feel of the music, the live performance and the interaction with the crowd. Continue reading →

Ready for day 2 of Carolina Rebellion. After an amazing first day everyone was pumped and ready to enter the show for day 2. The day was full of diverse bands from different generations and wide ranging genres. You can go from Tesla to Machine Gun Kelly, or Sum 41 to DED. Today’s lineup really had a little something for everyone. The Saturday lineup was filled with a tremendous amount of new names in metal like DED, Cover Your Tracks, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and many more. Of course those are then followed up by bands who have been around the block a few times now like In This Moment, Nothing More, All That Remains and Alter Bridge. Then you have bands that have been around for decades like Sum 41, In Flames, Tesla, Korn and Def Leppard. Saturday we spent a lot of time interviewing bands and didn’t get a chance to make it out to see every band, but the ones we did see blew our minds. The must see bands on our list for this day cane in the form of a veteran act Sum 41 and a brand new band DED. Being around for the glory years of Sum 41’s career made me want to experience them live for the first time. DED is an amazing up and coming band that is about to release their debut album and their single “Anti-Everything” has become an anthem to the troublesome times we live in today. Continue reading →

The NYC prog metal band, Infinite Spectrum, recently kicked off their Theories of Flight north American tour opening for Fates Warning. They’re hitting cities throughout the east coast and midwest, with one show in Ontario, Canada.

Concert attendees are known for holding a lighter up in the air and raising the flame in honor of the bands on stage. Don’t let your fire be extinguished and use a Zippo and it may just get you backstage for more great music…It’s always great when your favorite band has an encore right? Well imagine they had an acoustic encore set and you were one of only a couple dozen people allowed to attend. It doesn’t get any better than that. Zippo Sessions has been providing just that experience to concert goers for the last few years at some of the nation’s largest music festivals. The best thing about it also is you have no idea who exactly you will be seeing until they walk onto the stage. For the price of a Zippo, which is already great enough on its own, you get a special pass to see a performance. Continue reading →

The Last Tour by Swedish power metal band Sabaton finally came to the Washington DC/Baltimore area last Monday night on the last show of their North American tour. This is a tour I have been waiting to cover for a while primary due to my obsession with military history, and history in general. And on top of that one of the supporting bands was Battle Beast and Leaves’ Eyes, possibly my favorite symphonic metal band. The last album released by Sabaton, ‘The Last Stand’, after which this tour was named, was very well received by fans and critics alike. Additionally, I had seen some phenomenal concert photographs of Sabaton clicked by some of my mentors and was raring to photograph this show. Let me dive in to the review now, you can check out the photographs at the bottom of the page. Continue reading →

Carolina Rebellion has not only some of the best headliners of the year but also one of the best undercards in the beginning of the festival season. Day 1 was filled with not only iconic bands but also some of the best up and coming bands in rock and metal. The only bad part of these festivals is that sometimes bands overlap and trying to choose between 2 of them can be one of the hardest things to do. With those schedules and overlapping sets we aren’t able to adequately cover every band but we want to provide you with a walk through of the festival. If you weren’t there you missed one epic weekend and if you was there maybe we were able to catch something you missed. Continue reading →

This was one of those tours that I could not, would not, miss. As soon as Gojira and Opeth revealed the dates for a co-headlining tour of the U.S., the plans for a trip to Indianapolis’s Egyptian Room on May 13th were set in motion. With none other than the Devin Townsend Project opening for the metal titans, this tour was destined to go down as the heaviest, prog-infused expedition that I have ever witnessed. Continue reading →

Last Friday night at the Rams Head Live in Baltimore I witnessed the most visually stunning concert I have attended this year. The bands were In this Moment supported by Motionless in White, Avatar and Gemini Syndrome. The vast majority of shows I cover are of bands I follow religiously. These bands I wasn’t as familiar with, but you can bet that will soon change. When the tour was announced the discussion by the fans of the bands lit up the Facebook groups and other internet forums, which piqued my curiosity. On this Half God Half Devil tour, In This Moment and the cohorts of supporting bands have been selling out venues left and right. And this Baltimore show was sold out months in advance. So I let this review be an unbiased assessment of the captivating live performance of the all the bands on the given night. Continue reading →

The KillThrax Tour, featuring metalcore giants Killswitch Engage and old school thrash titans Anthrax arrived at the Fillmore in Silver Spring last night. The bands on supporting duty are The Devil Wears Prada, a band good enough to act as headliner, and Jasta, the eponymous band of Hatebreed lead singer Jamey Jasta. No way in hell were I going to not cover this event! Continue reading →